Three-Day Town

Chapter


11


There is the reach for happiness—the attempt to gain it by and through possessions.



—The New New York, 1909



SIGRID HARALD—SUNDAY (CONTINUED)

Last night, apartment 6-C had seemed as packed with festive beachcombers as a Hamptons jitney on an August weekend. Today, through the open front door, it looked more like Coney Island on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Plastic wineglasses and half-empty drink cups littered the surfaces. Bits of food had been ground into the planks of the floor and the colored toothpicks that had held tasty morsels were scattered everywhere. Several black plastic trash bags were heaped in the middle of the oversized living room. One was stuffed and already tied shut. Luna was still adding to the other three: wine and liquor bottles in one, aluminum cans in another, while a fourth bag almost overflowed with food-smeared plastic plates, napkins, and other party detritus.

With dainty fingers and an expression of distaste on her pretty face, Luna DiSimone lifted a napkin filled with olive pits by the edges and dropped it into that trash bag.

“Miss DiSimone?” Sigrid said as they paused in the doorway.

“Yes?” She brushed a tress of long blonde hair back from her face and her frown turned instantly to sunshine. “Are you the police Elliott said wanted to talk to us?”

“I’m Lieutenant Harald and these are Detectives Hentz and Urbanska,” she said, “and yes, we did want to speak to you. And to Mr. Marclay, too?”

Sigrid cast an inquiring eye in the direction of the stocky man wearing a flat cap and received a sour nod. She had given the guest list sheets a quick scan on the drive over. Nicco Marclay’s name had appeared so often throughout the evening, she was fairly certain he could not have left the party during the relevant time.

“Excuse the mess and come on in,” said Luna DiSimone. “I had a party last night and the caterers stiffed me on the cleanup part.”

“Didn’t I see you here last night?” Marclay asked.

“Yes,” Sigrid said, surprised that he would have noticed her amid so many.

“Charlie Rathmann said something that ticked you off and—hey, wait a minute! Lieutenant Harald? You’re Sigrid Harald, aren’t you? You and Oscar Nauman?”

Sigrid gave a tight nod.

“Well, I’ll be damned! You really are a police detective. I thought that was some gallery hype to make you seem more mysterious. Why the interest in which art people were here last night?”

“That isn’t something I can talk about right now,” she said.

Elliott Buntrock hesitated in the open doorway. From the neutral look Sigrid gave him, he realized that he was not supposed to mention the missing maquette. He entered without speaking and sat down on a green Adirondack chair. If he was going to have to mark names on a list, the chair’s broad flat armrest would act as a desktop.

Sam Hentz explained what they wanted from the two men while Urbanska huddled with Luna DiSimone to go through the contact list on her phone and text the pertinent names over to their computer back at the station.

“You won’t tell anyone where you got their info, will you?” the actress asked. “Some of these numbers have never been public.”

“We’ll destroy them as soon as the case is closed,” Sigrid promised. “And we may not have to contact all of them.”

Leaving the others to labor over the lists, she and Hentz walked out into the hall to meet Lowry and Albee as they stepped off the elevator.

“Learn anything?” Sam Hentz asked.

“Mrs. Wall gave us Lundigren’s personnel file,” said Lowry. “Mrs. Lundigren was with him and he was passing as male when he was hired nineteen years ago. Before that, he worked as a janitor over on Amsterdam and West Ninety-First. He listed his mother in New Hampshire as next of kin, but she’s dead now.”

“Was she aware that he had any issues with anyone?”

“Other than a nutty wife? No, ma’am. According to Mrs. Wall, everyone loved him.”

Hentz groaned. “And how many times have we heard that?”

Lowry grinned, then reported that the building employed seven men in addition to the usual service providers. Referring to the list Mrs. Wall had provided, he ticked them off on his fingers: “Lundigren was the super, of course, then two porters and four guys that handle the door and elevator twenty-four/seven. It’s like a little UN here—Jamaica, Croatia, Hungary, you name it, they got it.”

Typical New York, thought Sigrid. “Hentz and I will go over to the hospital and talk to Mrs. Lundigren. While those three finish IDing any guests with an art background, you and Albee can start questioning the employees.”

She gestured to the third apartment on this floor. “That door was open to the party last night, so talk to them first. Ask if they expanded DiSimone’s guest list to any art people. I gather that she doesn’t have a firm handle on who she invited, much less who actually came.”


When Sigrid reentered Luna DiSimone’s apartment, she found Urbanska questioning the actress about the dynamics of the building and how well the Lundigrens got along with the owners and the other employees.

“I honestly can’t say. He was darling to me, but I’ve only lived here about two years. It took me forever to convince my mom that this wasn’t the back side of the moon. She really didn’t want me to move so far away from her.”

“Where’s home?” asked Urbanska, who still had moments of homesickness for South Jersey.

“Over in the East Sixties.”

Suppressing a smile, Sigrid saw that Elliott had finished annotating his list and told him that she and Hentz were headed downtown.

“Can we drop you?”

“Sure,” he said, reaching for his overcoat.

When they got outside, the snow had finally stopped falling for the moment. The windshield and back window of the car were covered in white, but it brushed away easily. Traffic was still light and Hentz executed a U-turn that headed them in the right direction. On the way, Sigrid read aloud the names that Elliott had checked off and he elucidated each.

“Mischa Costenbader? He runs the gallery that exhibits Nicco Marclay. I saw him when I first arrived, but he can’t stand Rathmann, so he didn’t come over once Rathmann collared me. Would he take a Streichert maquette if he could get away with it? In a heartbeat. Orton owns a gallery in NoHo that’s two cuts above Costenbader’s. Marclay may be trying to get taken on there. I’ve never heard much negative about him except from artists that he won’t give a show to. Rathmann you met, of course. Wishes he were a bigger name as an art critic, but who doesn’t? I got to the party at nine-thirty and he was already there buzzing around Orton and me till you arrived. Kenneth Burtch? He’s starting to make it as a fashionable portrait painter. He’s done the mayor and one of the Kennedy women and a Rockefeller, too, if I’m not mistaken. You’ve got him on the guest list, but I didn’t see him. I did see Cameron Broughton, though. He’s one of those professional Southerners whose accent gets stronger the longer he’s out of the South. I’m not sure how he makes his living, but he talks knowledgeably about antiques and the decorative arts. He might not know what a Streichert maquette was, but he’d probably recognize that it wasn’t something off eBay.”

“And would he stick it in his pocket if no one was watching?” Sigrid asked.

Buntrock cocked his head and looked out the window to orient himself by the passing street signs. “Sorry. I don’t know him well enough to say. You can let me off at the next corner, Hentz.”

“You got it,” Hentz said as he stopped for a red light.

Buntrock fastened the top button of his coat and began winding his scarf around his neck in preparation for facing the bitter winds that whipped through the unplowed cross streets. “When’s your next gig at Smalls?”

“Tomorrow night, as a matter of fact.” He pulled in as close to the curb as possible. “Here okay?”

“Fine. Thanks for the lift. See you at the Arnheim reception next week, Sigrid?”

“I haven’t decided,” she said.

“I’ll call you,” he told her, opening the door. Two strides of his long legs and he was over the snowbank and onto the sidewalk. Without looking back, he gave a high wave of his hand as he walked away.

Hentz forgot to flick his turn signal when he pulled back into traffic, and an annoyed limo driver gave him a horn blast and the finger as he swerved around their car.


At the hospital, they inquired at the desk for directions to Denise Lundigren’s room. Once on the proper floor, Sigrid asked for her doctor and was told that he expected them. “He’ll be finished with rounds in about ten minutes,” a nurse said, “but I’ll let him know you’re here.”

By now it was well after twelve, so Sigrid excused herself and walked down to the end of a quiet hall to call her grandmother.

The same soft voice as before answered the phone. “I’m so sorry, Miss Harald. Mrs. Lattimore said for me to apologize when you called. She said to tell you that she was invited to Sunday dinner with another friend out in the country and that she’ll try to call you tomorrow, unless you want to leave a message…?”

“If you would, tell her it’s about the package she sent my mother and—Oh, never mind. I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Sigrid said and hung up feeling unsatisfied and slightly uneasy.

For better or worse, that maquette was involved in Phil Lundigren’s murder, so niceties be damned. She pulled Mrs. Lattimore’s letter from her purse and worked her fingernails up under the flap until it pulled loose.

My dear Anne,



I’ve spent these past few months sorting through the house, ridding myself of decades of mindless stuff. I’ve labeled the items I’ve heard one of you girls admire or that I think you or one of your own children might like. As for this disgusting object, I had completely forgotten that it was locked in an old suitcase up in the attic until my Smithsonian magazine arrived before Christmas. How I acquired it is not important. What is important is that it be returned to the sculptor’s family—perhaps to the granddaughter who gave the interview?—and that the return be managed discreetly without my name coming into it. Surely you or Sigrid must know someone in the art world who can be trusted to do this? The first time I saw it, I realized that it was a piece of racist vulgarity. Nevertheless it is probably a valuable piece of racist vulgarity and not mine to destroy or keep.



Mother



Puzzling as it might be not to learn how her grandmother wound up with something she found disgusting at first sight, Sigrid knew it would be pointless to ask if she had decided not to tell. Maybe when Anne came home? Her mother and grandmother spoke the same language, a language that could charm confessional secrets from a priest, and one that Sigrid had never mastered. Yes, let her mother deal with it, she decided.

Down by the nurses’ station, a short fat white-haired man had approached Hentz, who immediately signaled to her.

When she joined them, he held out his pudgy hand. It was like shaking hands with marshmallows. “Dr. Penny, Lieutenant. I believe you wanted to speak to me about Mrs. Lundigren?”

“Is there someplace we can talk privately?” Sigrid asked.

He led them to a small room down the hall that held a couch and two armchairs. Although Sigrid and Hentz remained standing, he took the farther chair and said, “I’m sure you realize that Mrs. Lundigren is not one of my regular patients, so I don’t have her whole history. Even if I did, I could not discuss the particulars of her case.”

“We understand that, Doctor. We only want your professional opinion. Is she stable enough to answer questions?”

“As long as you don’t get too close physically or try to force her to make eye contact.” He glanced at his watch. “I think I’ve established a bit of trust, and if you can make it brief, I’ll stay in the room if you like.”

He rose, but Sigrid lifted a hand to keep him from leaving. “Something you need to know, Doctor. Mrs. Lundigren’s husband was murdered last night.”

Again the doctor looked at his watch and gave an impatient scowl. “I’m perfectly aware of that, Lieutenant. Her grief and panic are precisely what we are dealing with here.”

Sigrid stopped him with a cool, level-eyed look. “Are you also aware, Doctor, that her husband was a woman, not a man?”

“What?”

“He—she—had evidently been passing as a man for years,” Hentz said bluntly. “According to the ME, she had not been surgically altered and everything was intact.”

Dr. Penny sank back into the chair. His belt disappeared into his belly and his chubby thighs strained the seams of his pants. “Well now, that does put a different spin on the ball. One hesitates to leap to conclusions based on insufficient data, yet one immediately has to wonder if her social anxiety disorder has been exacerbated by a closeted lesbianism. Not once in our talks did she refer to her partner as anything but ‘he.’ Surely she knows?”

“There was only one bed in their apartment, Doc,” said Hentz, “and they’ve lived there together for at least nineteen years.”

“I see.” He heaved himself to his feet. “Very well. But please try not to upset her more than she already is.”

“Will she be released today?” Sigrid asked.

“Before your revelation, I would have said yes. Now it will depend on how this session goes.”

They followed him halfway down the hall. He lightly rapped on a door and pushed it open. “Denise? It’s Dr. Penny again. These are police officers and they have some questions for you.”

Denise Lundigren sat in a chair by the far wall on the other side of the single bed. Her hair was neatly combed this morning, but her pretty heart-shaped face was scrubbed clean of the heavy makeup she had worn the night before, although a faint trace of eyeliner remained. Despite the dark shadows beneath her frightened eyes and the inevitable wrinkles, she actually looked younger and seemed more vulnerable than when they last saw her. Her hospital-issued gown and robe had been washed so many times that the floral pattern had faded to pale pink, and she hunched into the robe, pulling the front sides protectively across her thin chest.

Sigrid remained near the door. Hentz had been able to calm her initial fears last night until they told her of Phil Lundigren’s death, and she was quite willing to let him try to connect again.

He sat down on the near end of the bed and began talking to the pillow in a soothing voice. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lundigren, and we hate to have to bother you again, but you do want to help us catch whoever did this to Phil, don’t you?”

Hesitantly, the woman nodded.

“We’re not going to be able to unless you can tell us about last night. Did Phil seem the same as usual? Was he upset about anything?”

“Yes,” she whispered as tears filled her eyes. “He was upset.”

“What about, Denise?”

She shook her head.

“Upset with someone in the building?”

She didn’t reply, just clutched the faded robe tighter, but now she was watching Hentz’s face.

Without looking at her, he smoothed the pillow that lay between them and kept his voice low and matter-of-fact. “Was it one of his coworkers or one of the tenants?”

No response.

“Was it you?” Sigrid asked.

Startled, the older woman half swiveled in her chair and turned her face to the wall.

“Sorry,” Sigrid said.

“All couples have their squabbles, Denise,” Hentz said quietly. “Did you and Phil fight last night?”

She kept her face averted.

“What did you fight about, Denise?”

There was another long moment of silence, then the woman sighed and said, “I—I sometimes take things. I can’t help myself. Little things. Mostly animal things.”

“Was that what you fought about? You had taken something?”

“I try not to, but sometimes I just can’t help it and he gets mad if I don’t remember where I got something. Like the cat.”

“The cat?”

Relaxing a little, she released her white-knuckled grasp on the robe. “It was so cute. Purple and pink and little yellow whiskers! But Phil got mad and said I was going to get him fired and he had to put it back. He knew I’d cleaned 6-A the day before, so he thought it was Mr. Lacour’s. I was pretty sure it was Luna DiSimone’s, though, but he made me so mad, I wasn’t going to tell him it was hers.”

“You like cats, don’t you?”

Sudden concern crossed her face. “Puff-Daddy! Is he all right?”

“Don’t worry,” Hentz said. “Your cat’s been fed and has fresh water, but he’s probably missing you.”

Dr. Penny nodded approval. “You need to be there for your cat, Denise.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice slightly stronger than before.

“Did you want to keep the wooden cat?” Hentz asked.

She shrugged. “It was sweet but it wasn’t crystal, so I didn’t care if he took it back. But he said some mean things. He knows I can’t help it.”

“So you and Phil fought about the cat?”

“And the watch.”

“You took a watch, too?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t always remember when I take things, but he kept yelling at me and said he was going to lose his job if he didn’t give it back to Mrs. Wall. It’s like when he thought I took a necklace from 4-B and he went through all my things looking for it.”

“So he took the cat up to 6-A?”

“Yes. He called up and nobody answered so he said he’d go while they were out.”

“What time was that, Denise?”

“About ten o’clock? I was trying to watch my program on HGTV and he kept going on and on about the cat and Mrs. Wall’s watch. Right after he left, that nice young colored couple chose the very same house I would have picked.”

“And that was the last time you saw him?”

She nodded. “I thought he was coming right back, but he didn’t, so I watched my channel for another hour and went to bed a little after eleven.”

Her eyes darted to Hentz’s face. “What happened to him?”

They told her as concisely as possible. “We think he may have interrupted a robber or it might be that someone followed him into 6-A. Was there anyone in the building that he didn’t get along with, Denise? The other employees?”

“If he had problems with them, he never mentioned it. He didn’t like Antoine.”

“Why not?”

“He thought Antoine was sneaky.”

“Why?”

She shrugged.

“What about the tenants?”

“They thought he was Mr. Wonderful.” Her tone turned bitter. “They felt sorry for him because of me. Like he could have had his pick of perfect wives.” She flashed an angry glance at Hentz. “You don’t have to keep p-ssyfooting around.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve watched enough crime shows. I know what happens when someone gets killed. The autopsy. You want to ask about Phil and me, don’t you?”

“That he was a woman?”

“He wasn’t!” she said, beginning to cry. “And don’t you go thinking dirty things about us. Don’t! You want to make out that I’m a lesbo and he was a dyke, but we weren’t. I like men and he was a man in every way except for his equipment. From the time he was a little kid, he knew he was a boy trapped inside a girl’s body. That’s how we could love each other—why we got married. He took care of me.”

Her sobs grew louder and she turned to Dr. Penny helplessly. “What’s going to happen? How can I live without Phil? Who’s going to look after Puff-Daddy and me?”